Blame Trump for USPS problems?

The Federal General Accounting Office, (GAO) has been reporting problems with the USPS almost ten years. The link below lists the reports the GAO has issued since 2009.

For those who are interested in the post office's chronically bad performance and "unsustainable" situation, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has produced a long list of studies on where the problems come from and how they might be addressed. The short version is that Congress has blocked all sorts of serious reforms to an operation that has seen a 33 percent decline in mail volume since 2006.

https://www.gao.gov/key_issues/us_postal_service_financial_viability/issue_summary#t=1

Looks like the dems tried to rectify that in 2013....
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hr2690

But it didn't get a vote .... in the Republican controlled Congress.

And rightly so. That was the bill where Dems wanted the USPS to be a small bank and offer "non-postal" financial services such as credit, loans, savings account, check cashing, etc.

Sounds like a good idea. /sarcasm

It was also a counter-bill to the one the Repubs proposed, so it's not R's were sitting around doing nothing.

Love the lefties ignoring the 50/50 split board that signs off on all these decisions......ignoring the mismanagement of USPS and the problem of its retirement system. Gotta love government benefited people deciding contracts with union members.

That would imply that the plan before that, the Cummings 2013 plan, was the one you say offered "lending" services.
I looked it up. It would have allowed the Post office to provide check cashing services, but no "credit, loans, savings account"

I'm not sure check cashing is a terrible thing for the post office to offer. That used to be something people could get done at grocery stores when buying their groceries. I would have agreed with you if the bill had provided for any lending or credit type services, but check cashing? In an environment where it's more and more difficult for people who don't have bank accounts, that seems like a good service.

My argument hasn't changed. I simply stated that the dems tried to introduce bills to fix the post office issues, and the republican House refused to vote on them.

You claimed that Dems were trying to allow the post office to provide loans, credit, savings accounts and now "ATMs", internet service and check cashing.

I looked up the bill. Check cashing was the only item of your list which was actually proposed.

This means that your argument that:

is pretty inaccurate, as they were only suggesting one of those items. If you want to claim differently, identify the line in the bill which would allow other financial services.

And your argument that

appears to be wrong, as (to the best of my knowledge) the dem bill was proposed first... twice.... before the Issa bill you are referencing was initiated.

Gotta cut Vickey some slack, he wants to pretend the D bills were awesome not because he BELIEVES that. No. Victor just wants to insult people here. It’s his life. It’s the only thing that brings him happiness here.

Whatcha smoking? Almost zip

Trades? LMAO

Herfs? A few.

Live he’s not a terrible person, just his personna here.

I’m not looking up any failed bills from the past regarding the reform of the USPS. I’m just not. I have a life.

Good question, it would save a lot of printing, shipping and the sale of stamps, I would not write any more letters if they were free. It would have to apply only to first class mail however.

everybody craps on the USPS, but it is an essential government service specified in the Constitution, which gives Congress the power to set the parameters of the operation and build the roads needed...

guess who UPS, FedEx, and other for-profit courier services hand stuff over to, for the last leg if a delivery is too costly to complete for their "profit" models? who will step up and take mail/packages the last mile out to the boonies if anti-USPSers have their way and defund the USPS?

lotsa cons like to live in the deep rural areas, away from the unwashed masses of poor people...the USPS is their lifeline...

even CBid BOTL "endorse" the USPS since we, as a group, have chosen the USPS Tracking # as our confirmation standard bomb delivery service...

first, I have not looked at any links posted above if there even are any.

but I can add some stuff that I believe to be true. Partially heard something on Viewer Supported Radio (it's a joke, idiots) that triggered memories.

The US Mail is Constitutionally promised for the USA.
It is not expected to be a profit making business, any more than our Military/Defense Department or any other department that serves all of us. It is one of the special services that our founders decided needed to exist in a great country.

Because it's goal is not to make a profit but to deliver the mail, it is something to be funded by Congress, same as Military/Defense and other departments.

However, a decade and a half ago, President Cheney started a right side of the aisle push to Privatize the non-business postal service that our Constitution says should be provided for by money allocated in the budget per Congress, same as our Military/Defense Departments and others.

It just so happens that until 2006, give or take a year, The USPS actually did turn a profit. Amazing, I know, as it has been the butt of jokes for decades...which likely has shaped opinions even more than facts.

Obviously, that didn't work for President Cheney's desire to Privatize the USPS. Prolly had a friend or two in mind...kind of like early versions of DeJoy.

So it was decided to encumber the profit-making USPS with the previously and never since duplicated burden of guaranteeing pension funding for 75 YEARS INTO THE FUTURE!
Did you hear that right? 75 YEARS!

Can anyone name the only other department that has been strapped with that insane budget-killing failure inducing producer?
Hint: there isn't another department with such unmanageable constraints.

The rest, as they say, is history.


as long as we are on the subject, how many $500 hammers has the Post Office ordered? Now, how about the DOD?

kinda coincides with DeJoy's takeover and nutsqueezing the operation...dude is amazingly like Trump...lies with a straight face...

just in time to slow votes in an election too.

grow up people.

All companies have to fund pension obligations.

The USPS doesn’t have to do that either.

No they don’t.

I accept your surrender.

from that link:

What is distinctive about the USPS is that, a a result of the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA), they are also required to pre-fund their retiree medical promises. However, what is also distinctive is that any private-sector company may simply cancel its retiree medical benefits at any time; the funding requirement for the USPS exists because only an act of Congress would enable them to cut these benefits.


again, what other department of our government has been required to do so and expected to make a profit by ill informed citizens?

the union isn't why the mail is deliberately being slowed down.

for what it's worth, I understand.
And beyond that, I trust you telling me this more than other explainers.

so why is the USPS trashed when it's obvious that government promised services are operating under much different conditions than American for-profit businesses, and the USPS has had even more stringent requirements placed on it than other departments?

despite decades of mailman jokes, I've always been amazed at how well it runs. Something like a half million pieces a day? Whew!

I ran shipping for a couple of decades. UPS and Fedex failure rate was waaay more than USPS, and cost a lot more in most cases.

um, if Trump is your source, turns out that is not true. Never ever think he supplies truth.

And let's not pretend for one second that Trump doesn't make unfounded charges about Amazon only because Bezos owns a newspaper that Trump hates.

Great stuff for an immature potus to obsess over. Defend that crap? Seriously?

The above posted by one who is dedicated to avoiding Amazon in order to support my local small businesses.

With creative accounting I can show you that the Post Office makes money from Amazon shipments or I can show you they lose money on Amazon.

FTR Frank, I don't want the USPS to turn a profit. I want it to break even.

Ask yourselves this... If you needed to send the bank closing documents for your new house, would you put it in an envelope and drop it at the post office or would you go to FedEX/UPS to send it? When I paid quarterly estimated Fed taxes, I would literally stress out that the USPS envelope would not arrive, but my CPA said not to FedEX/UPS. Pretty sure I even took a picture of me dropping it in the mail box once or twice just for documentation.

I have ZERO faith in any kind of timely delivery or accountability from the USPS. Is that the trade off for lower costs? I would rather pay more. Except when I mailed CarsontheKitty his Gurkhas. Those went in a USPS FRB because they didn't deserve any better.

And FTR Victor, the bill allowed for "non postal financial services" which were widely discussed as the financial services I noted. As you well know, the language of the bill (and many others) is intentionally left vague to allow for 'interpretation', and it was clear from the proponents of the bill what services they were interested in tacking on to the USPS.

Tony with all due respect you think a private company drops that contract for no reason?

And government agencies don’t care much about creative accounting as they get more money for F***ing up.....that’s kinda my whole point with the USPS. They don’t have to turn a profit IMO but they have got to not be total 💩

I've used certified mail for things like IRS payments, legal docs etc. never had an issue.
Wouldn't drop in a box though, prefer to do it at the counter.
Not very expensive either.
Maybe they should charge more? I dunno.


It appears that my real life experiences with USPS is not the norm around here.

But I still believe this current situation has been in the works for a few months with the goals of undermining public confidence in USPS, followed by implementing methods to deliberately slow down the mail, and then claiming an invalid election...or at least having the claim warming up in the bullpen if he loses.